Kultur 8 Jake

The more of these kultur readings I read, the more I become convinced that the German people are aliens who call for close observation. The article about German diseases was the most recent piece of evidence for this case. Germans may not really be aliens, but they certainly are an ocean's worth of different. The idea that a circulatory collapse, a disease that both doesn't sound very fun and actually is quite often fatal. Germans seem to be able to shrug it off. It's funny, because things like this are a very common theme in science fiction. Different environments breed different diseases, and the people in these environments have vastly different immune systems. It seems to sort of hold true, albeit on a much smaller scale and significantly less extreme. It's also interesting to see the unhealthy skepticism that Germans are said to have concerning drugs and medicines. It's just funny that people who view a Circulatory collapse as little more than a reason to call in sick also feel that Asprin is a pollutant of the body. Maybe those alternative medicines do work...

In any case, the other articles were fairly interesting as well. The article on perpetual students was fairly amusing. I just kept getting this image of Van Wilder in my head. Van Wilder, for those who don't know, is an American example of this phenomenon. It seems like German culture is (or at least was) very accepting of this idea. Students get a good deal while they're in school. Heck, I kind of want to be a student in Germany now! Moving on, the article on Draftophobia was also fairly interesting. I've lived in Vermont too long, and have grown to love the cold. I don't think I would be able to deal with all the opponents of open windows and drafts. I'd probably snap at one point and start shouting various made-up statistics about how a draft is gut fur die Gesundheit. At the end of the day, though, these articles all support one running stereotype. Germans are odd.